I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: TORI AMOS-American Girl Posse (2007).

I had been pretty down on Tori records since Scarlett’s Walk, which I felt was kind of blah. The Beekeeper followed and it didn’t do that much for me either. So, I was basically not that excited when this latest record came out. I probably would have gotten it eventually, but then my wife bought it for me for my birthday. Thank you!

Because, this is easily her best album since From the Choirgirl Hotel. It has everything that I felt her last two albums were missing: real tempo changes, really powerful singing, and great, great hooks.

I’m going to get my inevitable gripes out of the way first:

It’s too long. I have to say to Tori: you can’t sustain 72 minutes. You can do a stunning 40-50 minutes, but 72 is just too much. I know that the “girls” tell you whether or not you should release them on an album, but you should exercise some veto power. Having said that, I don’t have too many suggestions for what to trim. I can think of two or three songs that could easily be dropped, like “Fat Slut,” which is just horrible, but it’s only 40 seconds so that doesn’t help much. There’s one or two other ones that are not as stunning as the bulk of the album, and could be trimmed. And even some of the good ones: save them for B-sides! I tried to listen to the whole record this morning and couldn’t fit it in the time!

The other gripe is the concept behind the record. Well, not the concept so much as the extravagant lengths to which it is taken. When I read a review of the album in Entertainment Weekly, they graded the record down for the concept behind the record. I’m not going to grade it down because of that, because the music is really great, but it’s still kind of silly.

My guess is that Tori enjoyed dressing up as alter egos so much for her Strange Little Girls record, that she really wanted to do it again. Hence, five “women” all dressed up to reflect different aspects of Tori’s personality, I guess. The thing is that Tori is rather distinctive looking. So, the pictures of these 5 women all just look like Tori in a wig. And, each one of these women “sings” songs on the record. But none of them sound any different! True, Tori has different vocal styles, and there are many different musical styles on the record, but there is no consistency for each “woman.” I’m sure I’m not the only Tori fan to burn the CD and reorder the songs according to each “singer” (I’m SURE I’m not!). And, actually, that resequencing seemed to make the album flow better, too. But I couldn’t tell any difference between who the personalities were. She looks pretty in the wigs though!

But enough of the negatives. The album is simply very good. It has what the last two albums were missing: dynamics! There is a great diversity of songs on here: from her beautiful ballads (“Digital Ghost”), to those strange little one minute songs (“Velvet Revolution”), to some of her best, most rockingest songs to date (“Big Wheel,” “Teenage Hustling,” and”Body and Soul”) and an absolutely great bouncey/dancey track (“Bouncing Off Clouds,”) and everything in between: (“Father’s Son”) (“Beauty of Speed.”)

And it’s this diversity that really helps this album stay strong through its length. Plus, unlike her last two releases, the high and lows are really prominent. The opening few tracks play around with different genres, making it a throughly exciting opening. She seems to really let loose with her voice and her playing.

Since Under the Pink, Tori has been very cryptic with her lyrics. Some of them are weird and some are simply impenetrable. This is a problem for anyone who wants to sing along, but if you just dig the melodies, you can skip over some of her groaners. (She sings “I’m a MILF don’t you forget,” which aside from being a cultural reference that is eight years old, is also incorrectly used. MILF means “Mom I’d like to fuck.” So this means she’d like to fuck herself, apparently. Oh well).

Idiosyncrasies (and ‘Fat Slut’) aside, this album is really great. There’s something for every Tori fan, and it will hopefully keep these creative juices flowing for her next one! This also made me reevaluate Scarlet’ Walk and The Beekeeper, stay tuned for reviews of those.

[READ: September 12, 2007] First Among Sequels.

I love Jasper Fforde! The Eyre Affair was one of my favorite books of the last ten years, and First Among Sequels is the fifth book in the series of Thursday Next books.

So how to explain this book? Well, let’s start with The Eyre Affair, without giving anything away of that book (except that fact that Thursday Next lives, but you could tell that since there are 4 more in the series). The premise is simple: in a parallel universe to our own, books, especially Shakespeare, are the entertainment that everyone loves, and gravitates to. Through a series of wonderful meta/sci-fi events, Thursday is able to actually jump into the texts of books through the Prose Portal. BookWorld is where all created works are actually created. When evildoers are let loose in BookWorld, they can wreak havoc on the printed page. In The Eyre Affair, Acheron Hades tries to hide in Jane Eyre and changes the ending. It is Thursday’s job to fix it. (This summary does not include any subplots, or even the fact that she has a genetically resurrected dodo, named Pickwick, for a pet.)

So, that’s the first book. But what of the new one? Well, there are two changes in the series that I think are noteworthy. One: there are pictures! At first I found this very disconcerting, but they actually come in very handy when (mild spoiler) text is rendered inoperable. And, of course, it’s obvious that Thursday looks nothing like those pictures of her (in my head anyhow). Two: Jasper has gotten very technical! In the sci-fi world, there’s two camps: Hard science fiction (which emphasizes scientific and technical details) and soft science fiction (in which science is either not featured or is made-up).

Obviously, BookWorld is made up, but in this book, Jasper gets very technical about how it works. My wife found this a little off-putting (and I’m more of a soft sci-fi fan myself), but I enjoyed how much effort he put into making these fictions grounded in reality. Fforde explains in great detail how books are created in the Text Sea, and how they are pulled offline and repaired after heavy use (all without you, the reader in the Outland, noticing what is going on). For more explanation of all of this nonsense, check out some of the Wikipedia entries, as those folks go into much greater detail than I am willing to! Some entries: BookWorld, Thursday Next, The Eyre Affair and First Among Sequels.

But what else about this book? Well, Fforde’s love of words and books in still staggering. His puns and jokes about books both famous and not are also great. The story is, as you may have gathered, totally meta. Beyond meta, in fact. For starters, the real Thursday is dismayed at her portrayal in books 1-4 of the series, which are full of sex and violence (although in our reality, they aren’t), and in BookWorld, the Thursday character from books 1-4 is, as she was written, full of sex and violence. So, in the fifth book of the series, (which doesn’t actually exist in our reality), Thursday is portrayed as much more of a hippy. Which Thursday herself doesn’t like either. When Thursday 1-4 tries to take over Thursday’s persona, all hell breaks loose in BookWorld and in Thursday’s world.

And then of course, there’s the whole concern of Thursday’s son, Friday, and his slacker lifestyle which is preventing him from joining the ChronoGuard and potentially destroying the possibility of time travel. Oh, and there’s also several people trying to kill her. And did I mention that she’s moonlighting as a carpet salesman. And, they’re considering turning classic novels into Reality TV shows! Confused? Yeah, so is Thursday. But by the time you finish the book, you won’t be.

The whole series is great, and this book is no exception. It’s funny, it’s fast paced, and it’s exciting, too. It’s worth starting the series from the beginning, because it’s pretty confusing (no, really) to jump in in the middle, but you’ll be rewarded if you do.

Oh, and this book is packed with “special features” (ie. go to his web site) where the fun continues!

[DIGRESSION]: The ending. I don’t think anyone likes a book that ends “and then she said…” [which isn’t what this one ends like, of course, but it does end with an obvious sequel in mind]. The only reason he is forgiven for ending the book in this way is that the title of the book is First Among Sequels, which, in addition to being a fun pun, is also an obvious comment that more if to follow.